


if i could see your face once more, i could die a happy man i'm sure

by BetaArtemis



Series: space families stick together [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Crew as Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Pike Whump, Pike has alot of guilt ok, Sad boi, canon divergent most likely once the episode airs, possible spoilers for Saints of Imperfection, post 2x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 08:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17784236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetaArtemis/pseuds/BetaArtemis
Summary: "You need to get up, Uncle Chris." That young face looking so determined in a way that Chris knew all too well, "Your people need you. If you don't protect them, who will?"





	if i could see your face once more, i could die a happy man i'm sure

**Author's Note:**

> because i have alot of Pike feels and i've finally decided to write something myself....18 years later... LOL
> 
> took me long enough!
> 
> basically i just can't get over the scenes of Pike looking all sad and guilty about failing people and not being there during the war and when he talked about the toll it took on his crew AND on himself and i really wanted to explore that pain
> 
> this one is for my fellow Pike fans :)
> 
> the title comes from the lyrics of the song "All I Want" by Kodaline

The screaming stopped a few hours ago, which means it won’t be long before they get the information that they need about Spock from Captain Pike’s mind.

Philippa is patient. She can wait.

_Some on the other hand…_

“You need to tell him to calm down.” Leland appeared at her side as he kept his eyes on Ash Tyler, who had been most upset at the recent turn of events as they had left the Discovery with its new captain in tow.

“He’s sensitive.” Leland scoffed, rolled his eyes, and walked away, not taking his eyes off Tyler, however. What was it that Philippa had said to the man before? Oh yes, that Leland was a worrier.

She knows Tyler still has his morals, the morals of Starfleet. And kidnapping a Starfleet Captain probably conflicts with whatever human feelings he’s got. But that was precisely why they hadn’t told him the full truth. It would have only inconvenienced the whole plan they had in mind. She didn’t need his pesky morals get in the way, and now it was too late anyways. They have Pike, they’ll get the information. It would be far more dangerous to disconnect Pike from the machine tapping into his mind now than to let the process do its job. Tyler knows that. It’s why Philippa isn’t worried. For now.

\----------------------------------

Fire. Pain.

Was someone screaming?

Was it himself?

He doesn’t know.

He can’t tell. How long as he been here?

Is he burning? He can feel fire. His whole body feels on fire.

Is he on the Discovery? Enterprise? Did the war end?

Was that Number One he just saw through hazy vision? Was that her on the ground? Dead? Bleeding?

Maybe it was Tilly, the young Ensign he’s supposed to look after?

It’s all so confusing. All so difficult to keep up. So many bodies.

He’s so tired.

It’s all his fault isn’t it?

_He’d failed._

The war. All the deaths. He could have saved them.

But instead he’s on the ground, bloodied and trying to crawl through seemingly endless corridors.

Maybe if he just put his head down, maybe just a moment of rest.

“Get up.”

His head snaps up at the echoing voice. Clarity reaching him as he looks around to find no one.

 _He knows that voice_.

Laughter, a child’s laughter, echoes around him.

_He knows that laugh._

He feels his chest tighten as he soon spies a pair of Starfleet issued boots inches in front of his face. He’s almost afraid to look up.

“I thought you said Captains aren’t supposed to nap on the job.”

Slowly, he looks up and his chest tightens even more. Standing there in front of him is a face he hadn’t seen since before the war had started, except among the list of the dead.

Charles Archer Jr. _Little Charlie_. Starfleet’s pride and joy. Heir to Jonathan Archer. Chris had met the kid when he had suffered an injury as a young Lieutenant that had him stuck at the medical base on Earth where he was treated by Charlie’s mother, Roan. The kid was smart, curious blue eyes, a wild head of blond hair, and always had a million questions. It made those days of sick leave entertaining, never a dull moment. He hadn’t known then how close he would become with Charlie and his family.

From the moment Charlie stepped foot at the Academy, Starfleet had always been grooming Charlie to become Captain, to take over once Chris left the Enterprise eventually. No one ever stopped talking about how it was the kid’s destiny to one day captain the ship that was the namesake of his grandfather’s old ship. Everyone believed it. Charlie only rolled his eyes and fought to have his own way. Chris was supposed to have him on the Enterprise once he graduated from the Academy, but the boy had fought the posting and made Command give him station on the Buran, _under Gabriel Lorca._

Lorca, who had sworn to Chris he wouldn’t let anything happen to the boy.

Lorca, whom he had _trusted_.

Was this punishment? Before he dies, he is to face the person he had failed the most? A boy he was supposed to protect with his life, but he had left alone? He shouldn’t have left him alone. He should have kept him on the Enterprise, then he might have survived. Lorca wouldn’t have been able to blow up a boy with a future so bright, Chris always knew he would lead the Federation to greatness one day.

“You’re dead…” His own voice is scratchy, pained.

“Astute as always, Uncle Chris.” The kid didn’t seem all that impressed, raising an eyebrow at him that would compete with Spock’s. “You ever gonna get up?”

Chris looked back down, shaking his head. “I can’t.”

The clarity and surge of strength he had a few moments ago seems to be gone. He’s tired again, feeling weighed down. He’s failed so much, and he keeps failing. All those lives he didn’t save. All those lives torn apart by war, stolen from a future they should have all had.

“You’re moping.”

“I’m not moping.” Chris’ lips thinned in annoyance.

“You’re frowning, you’ve got that crease in your forehead, and you’re blaming yourself. That’s moping.”

“No, it…” Chris stops himself mid-sentence and sighs, he’s arguing with a ghost, is this what it’s come to? “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you, Mr. Let-Me-Just-Heroically-Sacrifice-Myself-Without-A-Good-Back-Up-Plan. You always do this.” Chris can hear the frown even without looking up.

“I don’t always…”

“What was that last week? Or the week before that? Jumping on phasers? Asteroids? And don’t think I forgot your shenanigans last month when you decided pushing away from an arrow wasn’t enough that you just had to step into the line of fire? You in a hurry to die?”

He’s silent with no comeback. Maybe he is. Maybe he didn’t even realize he is.

He never told Burnham to toll it took on him. On his crew. The day he received the list of the dead, the day he saw so many names and faces he recognized. _Charlie’s name_. He almost wanted to give up again, like those dark days before Talos. He considered leaving. Just resign and go somewhere, anywhere. Some place where duties and responsibilities like this wouldn’t be in his hands. He’s tired of watching people die, he’s tired of deciding who lives or who dies, he’s tired of being told he can’t help and be forced to simply stand by. He hates himself for agreeing to follow his orders, for doing nothing as more and more names and faces were added to the list. Better be dead than a coward.

“I failed.”

“So what?”

Chris looks up sharply, a burst of anger filling him. _“What do you mean, so what?_ I failed and people died. All those lives. You.”

“So, you get up. You try your best, and you go fail again.” Charlie’s face says he’s not joking. “You used to tell me that. You said the worst thing a person can do is not try again. You told me life can be hell, that it’s filled with failure and loss. Things don’t always work out. But you’ll never get to the worthy moments, the great ones, if you don’t keep going.”

Chris can’t meet Charlie’s eyes. Those eyes that always seem to borrow into his soul. He feels pain. A different sort of pain. Pain of unable to meet the expectations of a kid who admired him too much.

“I’m 22, you know, I’m not a kid.” There was a sort of petulant tone in Charlie’s voice. You always hear it when he’s about to be defiant. It almost makes Chris smile.

“I should have been there.” His own words are barely a whisper.

“And what would you have done? Single-handedly defeat the Klingons by facing down all their ships?” Charlie sounds incredulous, almost scoffing, “Magically teleport in to stop Lorca from blowing up the Buran? You know, Uncle Chris, despite what you think, you are not super human. You keep setting standards for yourself that no human can pass.”

“It was my duty, my oath…my conscience…” Chris can’t find it in himself to continue, his own words feel weak.

“Does your oath and conscience tell you to give up then?” Chris looks up at Charlie at that, finally holding the younger one’s gaze, “You know what’s been happening, you know it deep in you, you just didn’t want to listen. Because they want you to give up. But since when do you ever take the easy way out? You know why we are here, you and me. In this moment. You’re Christopher Pike, Captain of the USS Enterprise and the USS Discovery. You don’t run.”

Flashes.

Flashes of images. Of memories.

A weapon pointed at him.

His body freezing as paralysis courses through him.

The Discovery crew shouting. _His crew._

Watching and unable to do anything as the shuttle doors close.

Georgiou.

Section 31.

Spock.

They wanted something about Spock.

Pain.

A machine.

_They strapped him down._

Chris shakes his head. So many thoughts. Confusion.

“You say your oath and your conscience shouldn’t have allowed you to leave me behind, to abandon me. What about Spock?”

Charlie’s words hit him, sharp and deep.

“He needs you. You gonna let Section 31 have him?”

Not Spock. They’re a danger to him. He can’t let them have Spock, no matter what.

It’s as if this fog had finally cleared in his head. As if he knows what he must do.

"You need to get up, Uncle Chris." That young face looking so determined in a way that Chris knew all too well, "Your people need you. If you don't protect them, who will?"

He thinks there are tears pooling into his eyes. He sees Charlie with his hand outstretched, waiting for Chris to take it. He had missed the boy so much.

“I’m not going to see you again…am I?”

A warm smile graces Charlie’s face, makes him look even younger, “What was that saying from that old storybook you used to read to me? _The things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, even if not always in the way we expect._ ”

For a moment, Chris is almost reluctant to move. That tiny part of him wanting to stay, to be here with Charlie. To be selfish for just a moment. But it passed.

“Time to go home, Uncle Chris.”

He reaches out to grab Charlie’s hand.

\-----------------------------------------

As if the alarms on the machines going haywire wasn’t already a pressing issue. The proximity alert was now going off too.

 _Starfleet_. They’d been found. _Dammit_.

Philippa frowned, the process should have been working. But it would seem Christopher Pike is tougher to crack than she had previously thought.

They’ll have to try another way. Another time.

For now, they retreat.

The agents all move toward the ship, piling in. Tyler gives her a dirty look but says nothing.

\------------------------------------------

The rescue party bursts in, all armed with phasers set to stun. Varying levels of concern and distress could be heard from them when they spotted the captain strapped down to a machine.

They immediately move to free him.

“Woah woah, hold up, let’s not just start pulling plugs.” The voice of Jett Reno providing reason as she seems to be looking around the controls trying to figure out what to do.

Burnham and Stamets back away with Tilly somewhat hovering nearby rather nervously. Saru and Nhan proceed to move about the area, keeping watch. Number One and Dr. Phillip Boyce from the USS Enterprise, however, move closer. Their eyes glazed with palpable fear and worry. The Captain is unmoving and way too pale. A sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Boyce waves the tricorder over Pike’s body, his posture relaxing a bit even as the frown remained, “He’s still alive. Stable for now. But we need to move him.”

Reno called out to Burnham, Stamets, and Tilly before starting to give them directions for what could only assume was a safe removal from the machine. Soon they all got to work before the machine was turned off and Pike was left unrestrained.

The moment the machine turned off, Pike gasped awake, struggling with getting air into his lungs and panicking.

“Chris! Chris! It’s okay, look at me, it’s okay!” Boyce held Pike steady, looking into his eyes as he tries to get the Captain to calm back down so he could breathe normally.

Pike seemed almost out of it, but he was alive and awake.

That was always a good sign. Boyce and Number One moved to help Pike get off the machine, taking in all his weight even as his feet went out from under him.

With the Captain secured, Saru pulled out his comm and said, “Discovery, ready for beam up.”

\--------------------------------------

 _It had been a few distressing days_ , Michael thought.

Not that it wasn’t always some form of distress one way or another. But these past few days had been unique even on that front.

At least they didn’t lose their Captain. That had been her fear, the same fear that had gripped her back on Terralysium when she held a dying Captain and had decisions to make.

But as she looks over to Captain Pike, there was quite a crowd forming around him and it made her smile.

It’s been a long time she’d seen this crew so galvanized around a captain in such a way. After Lorca, she almost thought it impossible. But she supposes Pike giving himself up to ensure the safety of the crew does make him quite endearing. She’s been fielding communications from the bridge crew and various other sections, all asking for updates on their captain’s condition. Even a message from a certain someone who had now just given her information on the locations of a certain section of people.

As for the Captain, he seems tired, but he’s awake and speaking. Tilly’s gesturing animatedly about something, Stamets and Saru are smiling, Pike coughs a little, causing a near panic of Dr. Boyce whom he waves off. Number One and Commander Nhan both seem to be rolling their eyes in unison.

Michael thinks this feels like family. And she likes that.

\--------------------------------------

Guilt is something Chris is good at carrying. Phil would joke that’s the only reason his hair is going grey.

He’s been carrying this guilt for so long.

“He was a good kid.”

Chris looks up from a photo of Charlie he’d been staring at. Number One strode into medical, her face serious yet warm.

“He was.”

He missed the kid so much.

“Glad to see him keeping his promise.”

Chris made a face, now confused, “What promise?”

“To give you a metaphorical whack upside the head when I can’t.”

A rueful smile now appears across Chris’ face. He had told Number One and Phil about the things he had experienced because of the machine. They understood more than anyone else.

“Careful, Number One, that’s insubordination, and attacking a superior officer.”

She shrugged and made a not-so-concerned noise, which made him chuckle.

There was a pause before Number One spoke up, “Are you going to be okay, Captain?”

Chris looked between Number One and the picture of Charlie, thinking about the day he’s had, the emotions. “I don’t know. But I will be.”

_He has to keep trying right?_

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't decided if i might continue more with this story....


End file.
